


I shudder to think

by Codango



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Bath Houses, F/F, First Meetings, Flirting, Pre-Canon, Secret Identity, Undercover, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6223483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codango/pseuds/Codango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look, bitch, all I’m saying is I had half a gold piece right here next to my drink, and now I fuckin’ don’t.”</p><p>The slim brunette shrugged, disinterested. “Sounds like a personal problem, sir.” She sipped her beer and didn’t rise from her seat.</p><p>Tetora paused to observe this exchange, despite the fact that she was already halfway out the bar with a new half-gold piece in her bag. She should keep moving, really. If the red-faced dockhand vibrating at the front of the bar was any indication, confusion would be setting in soon. Loudly.</p><p>But something about the woman at the bar gave her pause. It was as though an electrical storm were attempting to calmly drink a beer because it had heard humans did this sort of thing from time to time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I shudder to think

“Look,  _ bitch_, all I’m saying is I had half a gold piece right here next to my drink, and now I _ fuckin’ don’t_.” 

The slim brunette shrugged, disinterested. “Sounds like a personal problem, sir.” She sipped her beer and didn’t rise from her seat.

Tetora paused to observe this exchange, despite the fact that she was already halfway out the bar with a new half-gold piece in her bag. She should keep moving, really. If the red-faced dockhand vibrating at the front of the bar was any indication, confusion would be setting in soon. Loudly. 

But something about the woman at the bar gave her pause. It was as though an electrical storm were attempting to calmly drink a beer because it had heard humans did this sort of thing from time to time.

The man slapped a hand over the brunette’s drink, slamming the mug to the bar where it slopped everywhere. “I  _ said  _ I had half a gold piece —”

The woman slid gracefully off her stool, and suddenly the irate man’s feet were swept from underneath him. His head made a satisfying bounce on the sticky wooden floor.

Tetora was unable to help herself. She settled in with a mesmerized group at a table to watch. 

The brunette’s expression was dispassionate as she looked down at the man groaning on the floor. “I am covered in alcohol.” She stated this as though she were commenting on how the weather had inconvenienced her today. Her voice would not have carried so well if the bar were not silent as death. “Cheap, foul-smelling garbage that I would be embarrassed to be shilling were I the owner of this fine establishment and that I would be hard-pressed to drink were I not going on two weeks without any beer at all.”

Tetora’s eyebrows raised as the dark-haired woman knelt at the man’s side. “The truly ironic element at play in this moment,” she said, rummaging through his poorly concealed wallet. “Is that I had no intention of robbing anyone here. It seemed such a quiet place.” She stood and flipped the wallet closed with the toe of a worn leather boot. “You should stop putting ideas into people’s heads.”

The woman placed three gold pieces in a row on the bar. “This man would like to buy his friends several rounds,” she said, pointing helpfully at the groaning heap at her feet.

The bartender, a slight man with a receding hairline and a weak chin, gasped out some inquiry or other as to who were the man’s friends exactly.

The woman’s chin-length black hair swung as she swept her eyes around the bar. “I imagine they will let you know, sir. Have a pleasant one.” 

Tetora stifled a laugh. She stood from her table as the rest of the clientele surged to the bar with hoots and hollers.  _ Well-played. Very well-played indee—  _

“Don’t make me search you.”

Tetora halted just outside the curtains of the bar, blinking into the fading twilight. Her hand would have moved for her hidden knife, but there was already a nasty-looking one at her throat. To introduce another seemed superfluous. 

The brunette guided her around the side of the building into an alley. Tetora sucked in a breath. From a distance, the woman had been petite, slim, and quick. Up close, her skin was fine porcelain, she smelled like woodsmoke and beer, and her figure was… Tetora tried not to swallow too obviously.  _ Nothing to complain about.  _

“The gold piece. I was going to let you keep it, but you saw how much trouble you’ve caused.” The brunette held out a hand, not impatient but definitely business-like. “Learn to be less obvious or get into another line of work.”

Tetora leaned against the stone wall and let her hip curve just right. Another female thief? Tetora hadn’t met one yet who wasn’t open to the idea of… new ideas. “You noticed?” she purred. 

“That you are an unskilled thief? I believe several people noticed.” The brunette crooked her fingers. “The gold, miss. Now, if you please.”

Tetora frowned. Admittedly some women needed a bit more time than others to warm up to new ideas. “You just spent three of his gold pieces for him, and you’re concerned about this little half piece I managed to find?”

Pale lips quirked in a humorless smile. “My fee for his false accusation. He also has lessons to learn tonight.”

Tetora crossed her arms and gave the brunette a speculating look. She felt a slow smile cross her face. “You know what would really teach him humility?”

Dark eyes narrowed, but the woman didn’t back away. “I shudder to think.”

Tetora raised the tiny coin between two long fingers. She aimed for an expression somewhere in the vicinity of innocent, seductive, and sly. “Two gorgeous young women buying themselves a room and a private bath in a hotel across town. Without him.” She flashed her sweetest smile. “I’m Tetora, by the way.”

Surprise lit up the woman’s eyes. She even backed away half a step. “I… I didn’t meant to suggest that —”

“Oh, don’t feel bad about that.” Tetora pushed away from the wall and closed the distance between them just a little. Was the scary thief not quite so full of sharp edges after all? She felt her hunter’s grin come on. “Suggestions are usually welcome.”

The woman’s dark eyes swept Tetora from her light leather slippers to the crown of her curly blonde head. “A bath?” Her voice sounded a bit higher than before.

Tetora made a show of tapping her chin and cocking her head. “Well, it has been a few days, hasn’t it? I mean, if we’re talking about observing things…”

The brunette flushed, visible even in the dim light of evening. “I… it. I’ve been —” She just managed to stop herself from smelling her own sleeve.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Tetora cooed. She looped her arm through the woman’s dark sleeve. “Woodsmoke works for you. And if we play our cards right, I might be able to conjure some decent beer too. It’s been two weeks, I think you said?”

“If you paid half as much attention to your surroundings as you do the inane things that fall from people’s mouths, you might not have gotten caught tonight.” But the woman’s color was high, and Tetora was no longer intimidated. Certainly not as much as she was intrigued. 

“Speaking of inane things.” Tetora flipped her hair over her shoulder, certain that the woman would catch a whiff of her new perfume. She’d stolen it this morning from a lovely little shop a few streets away. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Yes, well, that’s because I’m more careful with that than the number of days I’ve been sleeping by a campfire recently.” The woman let herself be dragged into the thinning night-time foot traffic.

Tetora pouted. “You’ll have to tell them something at the hotel.”

“I usually do.”

“Oh? What do you tell them?”

“Something.”

* * *

 

Tetora eyed her enigmatic new companion as they entered the hotel’s bathhouse together. It wasn’t luxurious — she’d only had the half-gold piece, after all — but it was clean and warm.

The brunette shucked her robes without any trace of false modesty and sat to wash herself with a business-like air. You would have thought she was washing clothes. 

For herself, Tetora usually found this was the moment to add a certain sensual something to an evening. But tonight she kept her movements sparse and contained and simply watched the woman.

She was covered in scars. Many were old, and some were shockingly severe, but all of them had clearly been well-stitched and tended. Her slim arms flexed with instantly responsive muscle at the smallest movement. And Tetora had frankly never seen back muscles so defined on anyone who was not a man.

Tetora fancied herself a little more capable than the usual woman who operated on the fringes of society. Most female thieves tended to capitalize on the female part of the equation to get them out of sticky situations. But this woman…

Tetora dropped her eyes when the woman stood, rinsed herself, and headed for the steaming bath. Really. Scars  _ everywhere.  _

This woman had probably not bothered with feminine wiles in a very, very long time.

Tetora bit her lip and rinsed off as well. She noticed the woman notice her when she slipped into the bath, of course. Most people did. She rested her arms on the edge of the bath and gave the woman a searching look over her shoulder. “So you told them your name was Lili.”

Certainly-not-Lili closed her eyes and inhaled the steam deeply. “Your powers of observation do not cease to amaze me.”

“It’s an uncommon name in this area.” Tetora dribbled water over one arm. “I suppose that’s mostly out of respect for General Joon-Gi’s daughter.”

“It is uncommon.” The woman didn’t move. “And yet so many people don’t associate it with anything at all. Congratulations.”

Tetora flicked water at the woman, frustration making her give in to a bit of childishness. “You’re going to spend the night with me, but you won’t tell me your real name?”

Not-at-all-Lili raised an eyebrow. “Spending one night with someone is no cause to go spilling your name about.” The woman opened one eye. “No matter how attractive.”

Normally, Tetora would have allowed herself a moment to bask in her small victory. However, this woman was irritating the hell out of her. She leaned her chin on her arms, her back to her bathing companion. “I told you  _ my  _ name,” she pouted.

A gentle splash was Tetora’s only warning before a pair of toned, scarred arms wrapped around her shoulders. Tetora sucked in a breath but froze where she was.

“And you are too trusting by half.” The woman’s voice was low against her shoulder blades. “You let me catch you stealing, you tell me your real name, you lure me to a hotel, and you turn your back on me in a bath.” She laughed, and Tetora barely avoided shivering. “How are you still alive?”

Tetora was proud her voice was even. “I have clearly managed all right.”

“Except you’re spending all of your day’s earnings on someone you just met. What will you do tomorrow?”

Tetora  _ had  _ been wondering about that. She shrugged. “Something always comes up. And you don’t  _ know  _ that this is all I earned today.”

“Yes. If it were not for that pause just there, you would have convinced me.”

Tetora fumed, but she wasn’t annoyed enough to push the woman off her back. Her curves were slight, but Tetora had always been more interested in the person than the body. And this woman was certainly holding her interest.

A heavy sigh stirred Tetora’s hair. “Have you ever considered turning your talents to a more… stable enterprise? Perhaps expanding your skillset?”

Tetora turned her head to one side and blushed hard. Dark eyes were inches from her own. “No name, but you’re giving me career advice?”

The woman resettled herself across Tetora’s shoulders. “How long do you think you’ll survive doing what you’re doing now? Statistically, you’ll be dead in three years. Five at the outside.”

“Is this how seduction always works with you? Because I have some pointers.”

A smirk informed Tetora that she was no longer in control of the situation. Slick hands swept down her back, and Tetora sighed when she felt lips brush against her ear.

“Stop by the south gate of the palace in Suiko next week. Ask for Ayura.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have been wondering about the backstory of these two for, oh, ever since I first read them in the manga. They are _fascinating_.
> 
> [@codango](http://codango.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr
> 
> [Marcella Christie](http://marcellachristie.com/) for my alter ego


End file.
